Dealing With a Relative With a Hoarding Problem

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My mother in-law has had a severe hoarding problem for as long as my husband can remember. Unfortunately, despite the fact that every room except for her kitchen, dining room, living room, family room, two of her bathrooms, and her bedroom are hoarded to where you can't get in, she refuses to get help and refers to herself as a collector, not a hoarder. Unfortunately, she's even had one room invaded by pack rats without knowing because their back porch was also hoarded.

Earlier this week, we were over there because we wanted to remove some of the thousands of toys and books my husband had as a kid from her property. Normally this is not a problem, but this time, she demanded to know what we were going to do with some of it, threw a fit because my husband wanted to empty a bin into the garbage without going through it because something appeared to have lived in it (we did end up emptying it out at our place, and it turned out the only thing that wasn't garbage was fifteen cents), and coerced my husband into letting her keep some of his toys because our kids will come to see her; for the record, we don't have kids, won't have them for at least another six years, and won't have them around his parents because of the hoarding and because they have told us they will belt our children even if we have express wishes for them not to.

What probably disturbed us the most out of all this was a new thing she has begun to hoard. While we were taking a break between going through things, she opened one of several curio cabinets stuffed with stuff in her living room and proudly showed us a clump of fur, saying she was going to make another one of her cats; it turned out that she has started hoarding mats from the cat when she brushes her out.

My husband and I are very distraught because we don't know what to do; we know she's an adult and has her own responsibilities, but on the other hand, we know she needs help and want to help her. Quite honestly, we don't know if we even should step in. Is there anyone who is a psychologist or who has successfully talked to a relative with this problem?

Is her health and safety in danger because of the hoarding? (Is the home unsanitary? Would emergency personnel have trouble getting to her in the event of a fire or medical emergency, due to the hoarding?) If so, you may be able to anonymously contact adult protective services about it, depending upon where she lives and her age. However, if she does not have many other guests in her home, it would not be too difficult for her to figure out who called.

I work for a social services agency and have had to do this several times for clients over the years. It's a lot harder when it is your own family member, though. My eccentric mother was keeping 17 cats (yes, 17) in a small mobile home at one time and her housekeeping is also poor, so it did not take long for the cats to pretty much destroy the carpeting, furniture, etc. in the home. I thought about calling protective services, but she is too young for to be served by them and I also don't think I could have brought myself to do it. She and my brother did eventually give some of the animals away, but it's still not a great situation. These things are never easy, for sure. Good luck to you and your husband.

I'm very sorry that I've to say this, but legally you can't do something if she is not a danger to herself or to others and it can make the situation worse if you are trying to force her to something.

Sadly I've no real solution. Hoarding is in my opinion an OCD-like disorder. My father kept a lot of stuff, over thousands of books, several carpets so that they lay over each other and other stuff. But I still wouldn't call that a hoarding disorder, because you still could enter the room and everything. Also my grandma has propably severe OCPD. None of the ever changed their behaviour and non of them wanted treatment. Somehow OCD spectrum disorders seem to be very constant and many refuse treatment. At least that's my experience, but they seem to have a high success rate when they get treated with psychiatric drugs.

The best you can do in my opinion is if you get therapy. It may sound strange at first, but a therapist can help you and give you advice how to deal with such a behaviour from you mother-in-law. Also it can give her the impression that getting help for everyday things is normal. My mother started to see at least once in a while a therapist, after I want to therapy regularly and told her that it helps me.

It's good to hear that you don't force her.
It's just always important for me to mention, because I've a trauma and got highly paranoid after I was forced staying in the locked ward in the psychiatry. This ended in a drama that lasted several years where I freaked seeing a psychiatrist, had anxiety attacks because of them and wasn't able to take psychiatric drugs in that time. Well, it's off-topic, I just think it's important that everyone has the right for his or her own decisions, even if they seem to be very unhealthy on the outside.

It's sad to hear that she is so anti-psychiatry. Maybe she doesn't want to deal with her own problems and that's her way to do so. Some of her believes like the "reincarnation" seem to be schizotypal. Maybe I'm wrong about this, I don't have enough information, but OCD spectrum disorders and schizotypal PD occur together very often. So it's likely. I don't want to diagnose her, it's not serious over the internet with just a few informations. It's just a personal impression, I'm having many schizotypal traits myself.

I guess you can't change her mind, but if I were you I would tell her the truth in a very nice way that you don't think it's healthy letting children stay over her place. She has to deal with her consequences and maybe it helps her to realise that her behaviour isn't healthy. Maybe she wouldn't and maybe she will get mad, that's why it's important to tell it to her in a very diplomatic way, but she has to realise that her behaviour has consequences and that she has to deal with them. It's important to be as honest as possible. If she really has some schizotypal tendencies, than there is a high probability that she is a very suspicious person and the only thing to deal with that is with total honesty in a nice way of course.

Sorry if some stuff might sound confusing, English is not my natural language.

Hoarders ussually cannot stop. You can kindly tell her that you would not be comfortable having your future kids there and that there is no way you will allow them to hit your kids. There is no reason to be combative or cause them problems. I mean, you don't have kids. I know people who save cat hair [shrug] At this point, why bother making it into a problem?

It kindof sounds like you are just dissing her. Be careful of that. It could damage your relationship with your husband, She soundsike a fragile person. I hope that your husband is being supportive because it doesn't sound as though her husband is.